Heat exchanger bodies of the type described can be made from a number of corrugated sheets, e.g. by pressing or stamping the sheets, or by vacuum forming in the case of plastic sheets, after which the sheets are assembled and joined to form the exchanger body. This method of manufacture has a number of drawbacks. If the sheets are produced by pulling the web of sheet material into the groove of the mold by means of battens as disclosed by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,682,247 and 3,969,473, their thickness must be chosen to guarantee adequate strength to resist the stretching which the material undergoes during forming, in order to avoid rupture of the material and other undesirable damage thereto. This often means that the sheets must be thicker than normally would be required for their intended application in the heat exchanger body, and this makes the construction unnecessarily heavy and expensive. Moreover, the use of a single forming tool to carry out both corrugation and edging of the sheets limits the dimensions of the heat exchanger body, since one is bound to the dimensions of the form when producing the sheets.
The purpose of the present invention is to improve the method of manufacturing heat exchanger bodies, eliminating the above drawbacks and permitting the sheets to be produced and assembled into a heat exchanger body of any dimensions in a simple, labor-saving, and inexpensive manner.
This purpose is achieved by giving the invention the characteristics specified in the claims listed hereinafter.